Recently I have been listening to Ian Morgan Cron’s summer Typology Podcast reviewing the essentials of the Enneagram. It has been good to be reminded of the basics. I particularly felt moved by this week’s installment on the virtues for each type.

10 or more years ago I took a deep dive into learning and studying the Enneagram. The system resonated with me especially when I read the description of the Four, even more so layering in my instinct of Self Preservation. It made me feel seen in a way I had never experienced before. To me the Enneagram is not just a mechanism for typing oneself but has also led me to be seen and set me on a growth path back to my “essential” or “real” self.

In this particular podcast I saw again how our “essential” self or “soul” is hidden behind layers of protection. That our inherent virtue (what is true about us) is buried under layers of protective patterns. Protective and adaptive behaviors that have helped us as little people but as we grow older keep us from getting what we really want or need.

Tyler Staton sites in his book The Familiar Stranger ”One of the breakthrough insights of famed Swiss psychologist Carl Jung was his definition of psychological health…Jung observed that everyone-every last one of us-has a gap between our perceived self and our actual self. Psychological health, according to Jung, is narrowing the gap between my perceived self and my actual self as much as possible.”

Part of the growth path encouraged in studying the Enneagram is noticing our behavior patterns, the patterns that protected us at one time but wreak havoc in our life as we grow older. Identifying our patterns is part of the work to healing those protective layers we use to cover who we really are, to cover our vulnerability when it was needed.

Simply put we are all trying to get something we feel we lack…to be seen, to be loved, to have connection, to be admired for who we really are. The patterns of behavior that developed over time were to cope with vulnerability when these things were not present. They saved us when we were little but impede our growth as adults.

Recognizing my own patterns has been difficult. I found it much easier to identify those of my friends and family more than my own. I can easily see when someone else who is faced with a painful memory suddenly starts planning a fun trip to assuage the pain, or for another who is overly helpful when they are wanting to be loved…seeing it in myself is another matter!

So as I worked on this I started to see the patterns but wondered was that enough?

I found there is simple noticing and then there is examination of what is the motivation behind the behavior. It is hard to change something unless we are aware of what we are doing and why. Reading James Hollis’s books, a Jungian therapist and prolific author, gave me great insight that we develop these pattens and behave in certain ways for logical reasons. It may not look logical to others but for us it speaks to our context and the lens through which we see to perceive life. Our context being how and where we grew up, our experiences in life. Our lens being our inherent personality, our focus of attention.

These behavior patterns are how we go about trying to gain what we need. The problem is that sometimes the very thing we are doing will get us the exact opposite of what we desire.

For me as a 4 on the Enneagram I value image…a bit too much I might add. Yet my worry about how I look or am being perceived by others keeps me from being vulnerable in the very friendships where I desire connection. I want to be admired and loved for my creative talent, yet I fear rejection so I hide as not to be vulnerable to other’s criticism or “perceived “criticism. Or there are times when I think differently than others and want to bring a different perspective to the conversation yet I stay silent for the fear of being misunderstood or rejected. It is a conundrum that the way we protect ourselves leads us away from what we desire rather than towards it. We all do this using our patterns.

I have a friend who does not like to make waves, stir the pot, or create conflict. She feels conflict will break the connection she has with others. Years ago our group of friends had a disagreement. I felt one way and it seemed the rest of the group felt another. It was a tough situation for me to be in, standing up for what I believed in and hanging on a limb all by myself. Later when she told me she had agreed with me but did not say anything because of her fear of conflict I was shocked and completely blindsided by this revelation. I felt saying nothing at the time she left me standing all alone. I felt deceived. It was hurtful and broke my heart and the connection between us, exactly the conflict she was trying to avoid.

I start to notice what I repetitively do and understand my motivation but is that enough?

When my daughter went through DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) training and shared the workbook with me it was life changing for me. The exercises on simply noticing my thoughts and my behaviors, not making judgments about them and letting them go….either catching a wave back to sea or riding a cloud out to the sky…. was revelatory.

This led to a turning point in noticing and working on my patterns of behavior. My constant striving to be better, to try harder was not working. In the long and short run striving never works. The magic and beauty is in the simplicity of noticing and understanding without judgement…then letting go. I could not tell you why it works other than compassion for self and others arose in accepting myself as I was, allowing and accepting my judgements of others and myself as just a part of being a human being.

It is like the power of our pattern loses it’s grip on us and opens us to accepting ourselves as we really are. Each time I do this I am getting more in touch with my real self, my essence, my virtue.

I still do catch myself striving now and again but now I can see it, with time that is. When I do recognize that old pattern I say to myself “Oh there it is again”. I imagine it riding away on a cloud out to the deep blue sky.

I have found the beauty of noticing without judgement is feeling free to be myself, to know who I am…to not having to work so hard. To be and to feel loved.

Will you try this simple practice with me?

I would rather be whole than good

Carl Jung

When this quote was first presented to me I did not understand it. It was a bit of a mystery as I had not heard anything like this … ever.

What did Carl Jung mean with these few simple words?

The more I explored the underlying meaning the more my world was turned upside down. Thinking back I soon realized my whole life was one big effort of trying to be good. For some reason I needed to be seen as a good person … thinking this was normal, how everyone lives. A good daughter, later a good wife and a good mother. A good student, a good worker … the list goes on. I don’t remember my parents or anyone sitting me down and laying out the characteristics of what it is to be good. It was something I just learned, something I just knew, something taught and caught.

I suppose I picked up on the cues along the way … I could just feel it in my bones.

Hearing these words from my earliest of days “Oh what a good girl “. “You did such a good job eating your vegetables, or brushing your teeth, or drinking all of your milk.“ This began the process of trying to be good. I saw the pleasure and acceptance of me in the faces of others.

As a child I must have observed that those around me put people in two categories: good or bad. I’m sure my parents talked about people this way. So the lessons of what it was to be good and what it was to be bad started to form and then were stored in the recesses of my mind. Thinking back now it is a bit of a quandary and a mystery that we are raised this way, to think in terms of being good or bad…more on this a little later.

So why did Jung express this thought or mindset? What is so wrong with being good? And what is so right about being whole?

Goodness or being good, I have learned, can be a mask we wear to appease others or to boost our image either inwardly or to the outer world. As a four on the Enneagram my image has always been very important to me so I squelched my frustration and anger, my disagreement with others, and what I really thought as I did not learn these were acceptable emotions to share with others. I couched my words to what I thought others wanted to hear so I could be seen as good and pleasing.

As a parent it was very important for me to not repeat some of the things my parents had done so I strove to be a better parent than them. It seems this is a typical and a normal cycle that is inherent from one generation to the other. It is easy to look back and see what we can improve upon, actually being different than our parents isn’t as easy as it looks when we are the parent faced with a screaming child or one who won’t do what you want them to do.

My parents did not show and discuss their feelings, it may not have been their way or wasn’t allowed in their homes in which they grew up. Since there wasn’t (in my mind) enough space in our house for all my feelings, wishes, and dreams I kept them to myself. Hidden away, I thought this was an easier path. But this kept me from learning how to express myself. It is hard to teach what you don’t know. So instead of letting or encouraging my children to express their anger or hurt feelings they learned instead that it was not allowed or encouraged. Not so much through words but through behaviors or facial expressions of acceptance or rejection. A frown or a furrowed brow.

For me in order to be seen as a good parent my children needed to behave in acceptable ways or achieve at a level that would make me proud. I thought my motivation was to teach them how to make it in the world, to fit in, to belong, to succeed, to thrive. In actuality I was, in reality, using them to bolster my ego rather than allowing them to be them. I know I was doing the best I could given my upbringing and lack of exposure to other ways of living, of being. As was the same with my parents and the generations before them…the human condition.

It took some digging into reading and learning about Jungian philosophy to understand what Carl Jung meant by this quote…about being whole rather than good.

For so long I have had trouble accepting my own humanity, that I am inherently flawed. It wasn’t that I felt grandiose, it was just that I thought if I kept striving to be good I could outrun my flaws or fix them…afraid to let them be seen. I was trying to be “god“ in my life by not allowing myself to relax into the human being that I am and have been created to be.

In my head I knew I had flaws as all humans do but it is a long journey from my head to my heart. If I had trouble accepting the flawed part of me I either tried to strive them out of me or had to hide them so no one would notice. In doing so I suppressed whatever was thought to be bad and my shadows began to take form and were hidden deep within my locked basement. The hidden part of me could not be revealed as that would destroy the image I thought people had of me. An image that was very important to me. An image of a good person.

But that is actually a lie I told myself, one that has been told for centuries. Trying to be a good person is just another distraction, an addiction, a way not to address our humanity, a way to be in control. It formed my adaptive self rather than allowing my real self to be. So when I adapt myself to others or what I think they want me to be it does not allow me to be whole. I hide who I am under a mask of safety rather than expose the whole of who I am and face the possibility of rejection. I live in fear, fear of what others will think, fear of not being accepted or loved. I become other than human in my efforts, less relatable and without vulnerability to be seen or loved by others. I have found it is not sustainable to live this way, it is a hamster wheel that goes round and round, that never lets you off at the next stop. There was no next stop until I started to see what I was doing.

Relax into who you are without watching for how you are appearing to others…

When we are worried how we look in someone else’s eyes we are not centered on the good for others but for ourself.

What I have come to understand is that we are a mixed bag of good and bad. Good and bad intentions. Good and bad desires. Good and bad behavior…the list is endless and relentless but it is the whole of us. We are human. The sooner I recognized this and relaxed into who I am without watching for how I was appearing to others the more comfortable I was in my own skin. When we are worried how we look in someone else’s eyes we are not centered on the good for others but for ourself.

The problem of being good is that it is an impossible task. One we can never achieve in this lifetime. How many times have we struggled with the desire to do one thing that would be a positive move for us but we do the opposite?

In the last year I was made aware, by my daughter, of the mommy pedestal I had put myself on. This surprised me as I thought I had come so far with my interwork. I had knocked myself off this pedestal for my son years ago but that was a bit easier as he was more combative when he was young than my daughter, it felt harder to please him so I stopped trying. My relationship with my son suddenly improved after that.

My daughter as a child, under our tutelage, had become compliant and the peacemaker of the family. Working hard to keep us calm and together. It wasn’t until recently I saw how invested I was in how I thought she perceived me. So it took a bit more work to see how dependent I was on her approval of me as a mom.

With this awareness I now notice my motivations more readily, I see the anxiety rising of what I think her thoughts will be of me. Rather than saying what I think, I say what I think she wants to hear and this has anxiety written all over it. Luckily for me she is in tune to when I am adapting and when I am really being myself. This awareness has helped me see it for what it is, to notice and to stop it in it’s tracks.

I am a catastrophe!

Zorba The Greek

My husband’s favorite movie is Zorba the Greek…he is fun and wild and doesn’t always do the right thing but he knows he is a mess. As a mess Zorba brings great joy and fun to others. He is comfortable in his own skin. He is who he is.

So now I understand wholeness and the importance of incorporating all parts of myself, good and bad. I understand it better but still working on it inch by inch. I recognize that I feel more comfortable around others when they are true to themselves rather than when they placate me or couch their words for fear of rejection. I now have started to accept me as is and accept them more as a whole person who has many parts of themself and a context or history that has influenced them. Honestly I feel freer and more compassionate and accepting of others and of myself…I feel alive.

Being whole is being free!

My propensity is to be a chronic multi-tasker. I used to think this was a gift, even held it high as an attribute others lacked, a “point of pride” as our family used to call it. It governed my life…so much so that I would be on the brink of paralysis, not able to take a step without analyzing the most efficient way to accomplish a task or run an errand. “If I go to Costco I will also be near Target so I have to run that errand as well, and the bank is on the way home so I should stop there too…. oh and the car needs gas that’s gotta be done before I head home.”

Never mind that I only had enough energy for the Costco run. See the rabbit trail I put myself on? Run bunny run!

After my husband and I were married I would marvel how he handled errands. If he needed something from the store, at the spur of the moment he would jump in his car and go out and get the thing he needed. Errand done, tool in hand, back home he came. Later in the day needing something else he would jump in his car again to go and get the other necessary item. No grand schematic for the best route, no planning or strategy, no energy spent analyzing how efficiently he was spending his time.

For myself, as a recovering multi-tasker, I have to keep a watchful eye on my over-efficiency default setting. In my recovery I have discovered that the doing in me has kept me from my being. So I work on it, trying to be and trying to pay attention.

Now I make myself watch the water as it bubbles to the top of the Brita pitcher rather than let it overflow while I squeeze in one more task. I’ve learned to stop brushing my teeth while loading the dishwasher. When I take my morning pills I now sit on the comfy sofa and relax rather than pop them in my mouth while drying my hair.

There is nothing wrong with doing several tasks at once as we all do it. However, for me, it was the fact that I felt compelled to do so or my worthiness would be in question. Funny how we judge ourselves mercilessly on such minor things.

Multi tasking kept me from paying attention to what I was doing. The rabbit hole here is not paying attention, Not paying attention to my conversation with others as I would think of all the things that are on my To Do list. Not paying attention to my child as they are calling “mommy, mommy look at me”. Not paying attention to the beautiful trees surrounding the highway as I drive from point A to B, wondering how did I get to my destination…I don’t remember.

Taking the time to pay attention to what I am doing in the moment has been the key for me to not multitask.

It is not easy to pay attention and not let my mind wander off to my thoughts. There have always been the obvious sounds and objects that I hear and see each day… the sound of cars on the road, phone alarms ringing to wake me in the morning, ambulance sirens speeding by to save someone in trouble. But at some point I had to ask myself these questions. Do I really pay attention to what is right in front of me? Do I really listen? Do I take the time to notice? Do I hear the sound of the water as it fills the pitcher?

While walking in nature my daughter often uses her app, Merlin Bird ID, to search for birds and to record their sounds. Merlin always finds the hidden ones that are at the tree tops, it records their calls, many of which are imperceptible to the human ear. When she returns home from her walk she will share the sounds with me and the images of the birds that match them. Who knew there were so many different kinds of birds just in our little neighborhood. Scrub Jay, Blue Jay, Dark-Eyed Junco, House Finch, Anna’s Hummingbird, Bushtit, Acorn Woodpecker, Cedar Waxwings… only naming a few.

Looking back at my dad and stepmom’s love of bird watching I feel I had been a bit shortsighted in my youth. What did they know in their advanced age that I did not? I can see now…my mindset has shifted since I have started to pay attention to what surrounds me in the everyday, the here and now.

I am now a bit older and wiser. I find looking at the variety of birds with my daughter leaves me with a sense of awe at the intricate design and beauty of each; the colors, the shape of the head, the beak. The different sounds they make. Some, like Sanderlings, make me laugh as they dart back and forth toward and then run away from the waves on the beach, their little legs going a mile a minute changing course at a moment’s notice.

Friends of my husband recently came by for a short visit, deep sea divers by trade. When queried they admitted their favorite place to dive is Antarctica….of all the places in the world, brrr is all I can say. Sure it is cold, they admitted (seems an understatement to me), but the water is crystal clear and the animal life like none other. Okay, I must admit that this will not be on my bucket list. I have succumbed to the joys of bird watching but not hours in the cold water deep sea diving,..I’m not so sure I have progressed that far. But what do I miss when I make these choices?

Who would know of these wonders if we didn’t go exploring, if we didn’t search for the hidden? So this begs a question for me, If no one is there to enjoy these sounds who are they for, who do they benefit?

“Nature does nothing in vain.”

Aristotle

Thinking of these things, these hidden beauties, I see how small I keep my life much of the time, stuck in my worries, my obsessions. Sometimes the impossibility of attaining my dreams and desires leaves me empty. One look at the hidden birds and the stories of brilliant colored fish under sheets of thick ice makes me feel expansive again. I feel the deep desire, as Emily Dickinson wrote, to pull the doors of my soul ajar even just for a minute to let the light into those hidden and sometimes dark spaces of my life. To restore me.

When I would walk my kids to elementary school they would want to stop to examine every rock…I do mean every rock, and every leaf on the ground…

If I had let them a 10 minute walk to school would have taken an hour or two, school would have been over by the time we got there. If I had known then what I know now, how important exploring matters. What surprises there are in nature, the natural teachers. How it fuels the child’s imagination, how we could have gone exploring after school instead of rushing them off to soccer or dance class. Exploration rather than achievement and productivity.

I have found noticing and paying attention are the keys for me to unlock the hidden…discovering what is under the rock, where the birds live, and what makes another person tick.

I admit paying attention takes time, it takes stillness. It reveals things hidden in nature, things hidden in others and what is hidden in myself. When I allow myself the time to pay attention to what I am doing I see so much more. I am more calm and not as agitated so much of the time for not getting my tasks done…I hold my ‘To Do"‘ list and my errand schematic a bit more lightly in my hands.

Paying attention to what I am doing in the moment has created a more relaxed me. It has been the key to living a fuller, richer life. A life finding surprises along the way, things that delight, things that make me wonder… finding hidden things along my path, beautiful things. It has led to discovering the world around me, my inner self and parts of myself that I have kept secret for too long.

So to answer my above question-

If no one is there to enjoy these sounds, the things hidden in nature and the world who are they for, who do they benefit?

I feel Aristotle is right “Nature does nothing in vain”. The hidden beauty of the world is so vast and beyond our ability to discover it all but discover we will. I just have to trust that there is a reason, even a purpose to the preposterous extravagance surrounding me that I do not understand and never will.

Will you join me on this journey of finding the hidden, the extravagant in this life?

Sounds inviting doesn’t it, who wouldn’t want to travel this road looking for the ecstatic experience, being open to it? Welcoming it in?

The idea sounds lovely yet to get to this place, to let your soul stand ajar, in my experience is a hard journey and a long road…not for the faint of heart.

So I am wondering what Emily had in mind when she wrote this. To ponder this question and wander down this road together we will need to explore what the soul really is. Growing up as I did, in the Christian church, the soul was talked of often but it seemed something that was off in the distance, the part of me that lived on after I died…maybe the good parts of who I was, the Sunday School teachers explanations were as fuzzy as the flannel board. Maybe they didn’t know any more than I did.

Sadly I think many people who grew up like me still believe the flannel board of their youth. They live with the idea if they stay morally true (to their definition), do good things (in their mind) they will have enough good parts that will live on for eternity. That their soul will be filled up with good deeds to take to heaven. But I no longer think that this is really how it works. Trying to be good only brings us more pretending, more masks, because after all we are really human…warts and all.

“ I would rather be whole than good.”

CG Jung

So what is the soul really? A mysterious ghost like figure that rises to heaven when you die? It might be time to leave the church’s childish flannel board illustration behind to really understand the soul and what it is.

From my research this is how the soul is identified~

The Greek word for soul is ψυχή (pronounced psoo-khay, commonly transliterated as psyche). It traditionally means life, breath, self, or the inner being, and in Homeric times, it referred to the breath-soul that leaves a person at death. It is often associated with the seat of feelings, desires, and personal identity.

When I talk of soul I mean the truest part of me, the part that which has been with me before my first breath. Resonating with the above description of it as my personal identity, feelings, desires and inner being.

So it appears the soul has been with us from the beginning and is who we are created to be, our true self….if we are not aware of our soul it seems to be hanging out in our unconscious somewhere. But where did it go and how did we lose contact with it?

If our soul is our true self then there must be a false self also hanging around. What is this false self and where did it come from?

What I have come to understand is that as little ones we learn to create a mask to cover our vulnerability, to protect our little selves from a big world and big people. Overtime as we rely on these precautions and protections they become endless and they run deep, it is where we hide ourselves. If you are like me, we have tried to push all our ugliness down below the surface…our hurts, our pains, the things about us that we think are unacceptable. We tell our selves inner stories of what is acceptable and what is not. We adapt who we are to be accepted by those around us, to be loved and to belong. We use these reflexive strategies to meet our needs and quell our anxiety.

These protections are not bad but important for us as children to stay safe. Yet, as we grow older, if we do not notice the protections for what they are we take them on as a persona or false self which ends up getting in the way of seeing the person we really are. It is a self we build to survive and over time we begin to believe it is who we are, so we continue to wear a mask of protection, and our soul (our true self) remains unconscious or hidden to us and others.

We all chain ourselves in a prison of inauthenticity when we continually depend upon our mask and try to present it as our true self. Locking our soul in a prison cell. It isn’t until we grow older that the mask no longer serves us the way that it used to, and will start to fall apart in one way or another. It will get in the way of true connections and true belonging since a part of us is hidden from the other.

You may already know what happens when you try to push a beach ball underwater…. it always comes out sideways. So these unwanted parts of ourselves “leak” out since they were never meant to be pushed underwater and buried. They are a beautiful part of us that needs to be seen yet when thy leak out sideways they are usually presented in an impaired way not in a whole way as they were meant to be.

In my experience the soul keeps knocking at the door of the prison we have put it in. For me I finally had to answer the door, answer the call to open the door. Opening up to the authentic self and allowing the soul to take flight was frightening, and has been a hard and long journey. Although it is my heart’s desire to be real and to be me I have been living this way, from my inauthentic self, for six decades. It has only been in the last 30 of those years that I started to question what it is to be me, to be a whole person, to start to have a growing understanding of my soul, my life breath.

“Gaining a sense of worth and recovering personal authority thus becomes the single most important task of the second half of life.”

James Hollis, Ph.D.~A Life of Meaning

If we are lucky in our life we may hit a crisis point that starts to break apart the illusion we have of ourselves. Beatrice Chestnut and Uranio Paes of CP Enneagram Academy have named this breaking apart phase “shock point”. The “shock point” could be a break down or mid-life crisis that makes our psyche cry out, ”I can no longer live like this hidden in you”…the soul is ready for a prison break.

For me it was a culmination of a lot of things but the crucible was when I realized I could not ask for the color of car I wanted. May sound trivial to you but it revealed a long life of hiding, placating and making room for everyone else but me. Where was that unique individual that I thought I was? Why would I not stand up for what I needed or wanted? I was literally sick and tired of the mask, of not being me, of pretending.

“What does the psyche want?” This question is the beginning of healing the vast split each of us carries within.”

James Hollis, Ph.D.~A Life of Meaning

It is a conundrum that we choose to stay in our false self rather than explore who we really are. Although it might be a comfortable route, one that is known to us, we are really choosing the opposite of what we desire…connection, love and belonging. It may seem comfortable to us as we don’t have to change, don’t have to take a look at ourselves under the hood so to speak. But if we don’t look at ourselves, examine our insides, we continue the same repetitive reactions and behaviors that separate us from others. And we wonder why we are so anxious.

I notice now when I have been with a group of friends and I haven’t had my “antenna” up to check my every word before it comes out of my mouth I feel so free. Yet later, when by myself, I start to panic “what did I say that could have been offensive? “. “What if they misunderstood me?” It is the same panic I felt years ago when I first started shedding my adaptive self. Now I know who I want to be, the real me inside, but I have hidden her so long that sometimes the vulnerability can be overwhelming.

The inauthentic life (false self) I choose to walk away from was the way of pretending….saying I am happy when I am actually sad, not admitting when I am angry, saying yes when I mean no… just so I won’t disappoint those around me. The list is long. Many therapy sessions, books, podcasts, and seminars later I can say it has been a hard road but one well worth the journey…as there is nothing quite like the feeling of freedom when you are living true to yourself, your insides congruent with your outsides. The feeling is transcendent and there is contentment, the connections to others are deeper, truer, more healthy.

Unearthing our real self is a process of noticing when the false self has taken over. Noticing when our reactions are incongruent to how we really feel inside. Noticing we are anxious for no apparent reason, noticing our patterns. As Ian Morgan Cron of the Typology podcast likes to say “it takes a minute” to start to see the real you, to unwrap the chains that bind us and see the beauty we have hidden away.

When we explore our true self, we will gain a sense of equanimity in our lives and true connections to others, that which we have been seeking since birth. We begin to see the divine uniqueness of each and every one of us, the distinctive expression we bring to the world for this time and for this place.

There is nothing more beautiful than living to your true self. Unearthing my soul ultimately has been a road to recovery…and I will continue to be on this journey for as long as I continue to live. The joy is living a much more contented life than I had before. Will you join me?

With love, Jana

Helpful tools for the journey:

“The Life of Meaning” by James Hollis (read anything and everything from James Hollis)

“The Gift of Being Yourself” by David G. Brenner

“The Audacity to Be You” by Dr. Brad Reedy

“Enneagram 2.0” Podcast with Beatrice Chestnut and Uranio Paes

“Typology” Podcast with Ian Morgan Cron

“Finding You” Podcast with Dr. Brad Reedy

“Living with Heart” Podcast with Dr. Chip Dodd & Bryan Barley

tran·scend·ent

beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience

Walking through my garden on an unusual sunny and warm Spring day on the Monterey Coast… there is a light wind and the smell of the neighbor’s barbecue dinner wafting my way…feels like summer. I have to remind myself it is still March and my white pants have to stay in the closet until May. Memorial Day is the day of liberation for my white pants, some years I cheat a little and bring them out a bit earlier than seasonly correct. Old habits and mores dye hard.

In my garden little buds on my Japanese maple trees are unfurling, just waking up from their sleepy winter slumber. “Hello little one“ I say to those that have started to show their color. They are like presents on a Christmas morning, greeting me with their beauty, their tenacity, and the impossibility that they show up year after year. More abundant this year from our bounty of heavy winter rains, who knew that plants actually need water, and a lot of it to survive and thrive. These are transcendent moments, as my mind thinks of nothing but the wonder of their beauty.

Their existence.

As I am readying for the day I see a hummingbird through the window who stops just long enough to rest on a nearby branch then flit away. I say “hello little fellow. where will your travels take you today?” It is unusual for me to view a hummingbird when they are still, their bodies radiating unbelievable iridescent colors. Just looked it up and learned that their feathers don’t actually have pigment. According to Gemini AI “These colors are not due to pigments, but microscopic, light-refracting feather structures that change shades depending on the angle of light.“ Who knew?

It does seem a little funny for me to talk with nature this way, a little foolish even. However, I feel their presence and the delight of ‘nature naturing’ like some people like to say. It’s as if they are talking with me, letting their presence be known.

These are magical moments, moments of transcendence for me.

Recently I had a discussion with someone dear to me about transcendence. She didn’t feel the transcendent she said, didn’t know what it was and wanted me to describe it to her. In response I asked her a question “what are those moments you have experienced where your mind stops chattering, it is silent, the world stands still?” “Where all seems quiet and a presence unnameable?“ She was silent. Encouraging her further I reminded her of the day before. We were on a small boat in the Pacific Ocean near Puerto Vallarta watching for whales. Sitting on the bow of the boat, the breeze ruffling her hair, the spray of the ocean lightly washing over her sun drenched skin, a peace and calm was emanating from her. I don’t think I have ever seen her so tranquil, so at peace. She had mentioned to me a day or two before how she could be on the water for hours, how she loved it. Might this be transcendence for her?

Nature does present these transcendent moments for me more than others but there have been those times where I’m with a group of friends and family and I sit back and observe the chatty interaction and smiling faces…there is an unexplainable calm, a joy and contentment in those moments. A blissfulness. Other times it is the impossibility of a flower growing through a crack in the sidewalk…nature naturing again.

Transcendent moments can be fleeting, like a tiny whisper in your ear. They are here one moment then gone just as quickly.

Some of us may miss these moments because we are distracted or busy, so very busy. We may not have been trained to notice. Some of us not having learned to notice what it feels like in our body, in our mind, and in our heart and soul. Not enough attention is paid to awareness of our surroundings and we are not able to notice the sensations.

I have been there…many times.

My mind absorbed by my To Do list, cycling through my schedule and the activities of the day that I miss that which is right before me. Sometimes I could be enjoying a moment of connection with a client or friend but I’m worried about checking off the boxes, thinking a gander at my list with all those crossed off items will make me feel fulfilled at night. On these occasions I come up empty.

Not only distraction disturbs the possibility of wistful moments but worry is also a great blocker of what is presented to us, each day.

We, of course, need to attend to the things that need to be done everyday, to put food on our table, keep the lights on and that sort of thing. However, where it gets tricky is when our mind is so busy, with the mundane, the doing rather than being that we miss those magical moments. The moments that give meaning, a moment of respite, that which carries us through a hectic day.

No need to be down on yourself if this is not something you have experienced or noticed. It does take practice to notice. In a world that says “never stop long enough to pay attention to what is surrounding you, you must keep working, keep doing” it is easy not to take the time to notice. To not notice the minute, the beckoning to slow down, the still small voice calling your name.

“Noticing” is one of the most healing practices I have encountered. It has helped me not judge my thoughts, not react hastily when one of my triggers has been activated, to not dialogue for days in my head about an ugly encounter with another. Just taking a few moments here and there to notice what you do, how you do it. What gives you energy and joy, what depletes. To notice where your attention goes, where it does not. To notice your thoughts and then let them go.

For me this practice has opened a world that is quiet and gentle, one that soothes my soul. One where distraction stands at bay, even for just a moment, presenting that which matters.

Will you notice with me?

I would rather be whole than good ~Carl Jung

What is it to be whole rather than good? When I first heard this quote by Carl Jung I was astonished. I had never heard this before…it had never occurred to me to be whole, to not live my life working toward goodness. All my life was centered around being a good person, doing good, being seen as a nice congenial person, not realizing I wasn’t developing as a whole person….l was hiding parts of myself. The parts I thought should stay in the closet, the things about myself that I thought people wouldn’t understand or the ones that would made me look bad, ridiculous, too sensitive or crazy to have such dreams, such longings.

It seems for generations now we have grown up with the underlying current of the need to be seen as good, at least adhering to a certain societal definition of goodness. A puritanical impression upon our lives perhaps. We desire to fit in and belong, we need to survive and are so dependent on our caregivers and those around us as we grow. So much so we start to hide things about ourselves that don’t feel acceptable, that would make us an outsider, would make us unlovable. We adapt our behaviors, tuck away what we have deemed are the unacceptable parts of ourselves so we can belong, be accepted, be loved.

The message received in childhood could be explicit or implicit. It may be “innocently” said out loud since birth… “what a good baby!”. As if, in reality, a baby can choose to be good or bad. Hunger, thirst, change my diaper are probably top of mind. Or it could be an unstated family belief, never spoken but always present vibrating under the radar.

As Dr, Brad Reedy likes to say, we were bent by our parents and our children are bent by us, on and on it goes. Recently, I have been learning that my focus on being a good parent while my kids were young kept my center of attention on me rather than on them. I wasn’t available to listen to them, hear them, or see them. I was too preoccupied on how their behavior reflected on me. It kept me from being real, being present, and alive. My parents had this focus as well as the many generations that came before them.

We learn to teach them what we have been taught, that there are strict rules and ways of being in this world and adhering to them help them fit in and succeed.

My first husband and I were both trying to be good parents. Growing up both of us received the message loud and clear….the importance of being good, of being nice to others, to fitting in, to keeping the rules of conduct. It is true we need to learn how to get along with others in this world, there are certain rules to be followed to allow us to live together. However, we begin to lose ourselves when the “being good” fits someone else’s script and makes us hide who we really are.

For example, I have heard parents say to their children when they express a negative comment about another “Oh you don’t mean that!“. Rather than being curious of how the child is feeling we are caught up in expecting them to say nice things about others, otherwise our good parent standing might come into question. These negative comments make us feel uncomfortable so we are dismissive rather than curious. When a parent discounts a child’s voice to teach them to be good what is the message the child gets?

So as children we get the message to hide these parts of ourselves, as they are unacceptable. These hidden layers that cover our true selves add up over time, stone after stone covers them, some buried so deep we don’t even know these parts of us exist, the one’s that went underground long ago. This message doesn’t just come from our parents, others in our lives influence us as well.

As my daughter and I talk of her childhood and what she learned from us as parents, her work unwrapping what has been hidden, I say to myself “if only I had heard about this long ago, about being whole”. But long ago I did not have the ears to hear or the eyes to see. I needed someone to expose me to a different way of being, something other than how I grew up. I had a backpack full of stones that impeded the real me from being exposed and someone needed to help me uncover these.

So I entered my first therapy session at the age of forty, I thought I was there to learn how to ask for the color of car that I wanted or to learn not to expect my friends to know what I needed without telling them…I wanted my friends to read my mind rather than to risk asking for what I wanted. These were the presenting issues…other issues were buried deep.

I didn’t realize this would become a life long process of removing those stones and uncovering what was hidden beneath. One time leaving a session, I remember getting in my car, driving down the highway sobbing. I was sad, alone, afraid. My thought was “If I shed my coping mechanisms, who I think I am, then who will I be?” “Who will I be if I don’t have these survival strategies I have relied on for so long?”

Years later, continuing down the inner work highway, I learned I was still me, still had the same interests, the same hunger for creativity, for beauty. As I’ve gone even deeper exposing my real self, lifting away a stone here or there I found I am lighter, more me, more present, less defensive. The load I had been carrying around was slowly being tossed away…stone by stone.

So my inner work, my therapy, laid the ground work for me to hear that I needed to knock myself off the good person, good parent pedestal. This is how inner work goes, you uncover one stone and think you are done only to find another and then another down the path. It was time to shed this reflexive behavior because the focus was still on me rather than my children, or on others. If I wanted a true relationship with my self, my children and others I needed to be present, to be available, to not have my defenses up…to show up as the whole me. Rather than the good me

I began yearning to know who my children were made to be, not how they had become a reflection of my good parenting. Who are they as a whole person, and in turn who am I? Paradoxically, children and others in our lives can be great teachers about ourselves…if we are listening.

“Nature never repeats herself and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another” ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Not only have I learned I would rather be whole than good I also would rather belong than fit-in. To belong is to bring my whole self to the table, the more I become whole and show up as a whole person, the more of my own expression is revealed, the richer the experience with the other.

In James Hollis writings he often asks the question “What wants expression through you?”. I believe we are all unique individuals, created in special ways and with a specific expression. This makes sense to me… if we all were mathematicians or bakers or artists where would the world be? We need many different kinds of people in this world each with a unique gift, a unique quality, a unique expression. We need our whole self to find our unique expression. This is our work in our adulthood…uncovering who we really are.

It took me 40 years to build up all my ways of being, of trying to be good, of wanting to fit-in, of hiding so many parts of myself, building up my adaptive parts. These coping mechanisms helped me when I was little, helped me survive. As I have become older they now hinder my real self, my true self from living to its fullest. It seems the first half of life is building up these protective walls of stone and burying what doesn’t fit. The second half is tearing them down. I will be working on this, removing unturned stones to reveal what is beneath, until the end of my life. The unturned stone I see now leads me to leaving the good person and the good parent behind….and to walk toward

wholeness.

Will you walk this path with me?

It had been 33 years since I stepped off the plane in Paris. Memories flooded my mind as I walked through the corridors of the airport. So much the same but at the same time so much different. More security, more people, more cars on the road I recognize, less clean than I remember on the outskirts. Easier travel with G7, the European version of Uber. Locally no need to travel by metro or eurail.

Remarkable buildings and monuments still standing, wondering how many people have passed their way since I did so long ago. What would it be like to travel everyday day in and day out to and from work passing by the intricate iron work and carved stone that so captures my attention now. More English translation on the menus and directional signs…so very helpful! Friendlier people.

In Paris there is a chaos to the drivers on the road yet a cadence as they weave in and out of the lanes not even inches from each other. Like water rushing down the rocky gorge, weaving this way and that to avoid the rocks…there is an unspoken rhythm. I don’t look just trust their instincts otherwise panic would have gripped me at every change in lane. I choose to focus on the scenery as it passes me by. When in New York you know you are there when you hear the taxi’s honking horns, here it is the rhythmic police sirens that welcome you to Paris…just in case you forgot where you are.

Parisians don’t sit on their horns like Americans do at the first provocation… being cut-off or waiting too long after the light turns green. If they are mad it is just a gesture of the hand in the air and a mumbled grunt and it is over, we again are on our merry way. What would life be like for us if we were able to unload the stress so easily, just a moment than it’s gone, no lingering feeling that my rights have been violated.

An International show of fabric and furniture ’s new collections drew me this direction. Fabric covered lanterns hanging over the district welcomed us, heralding that we have arrived and it’s going to be show…a big show. The streets hum with the excitement and anticipation. I admire the ingenuity and tenacity of the Pop up shops. An art gallery one day, the next transformed to a show house then back again all in one week. The underlying creative hum was evident. Pride of ownership and what they had accomplished, ready to show us their wares.

There is a vibration that all creatives must hear as the underlying themes of this years offerings create a pattern of color and style that resound throughout the new collections, these collections 2-4 years in the making. I’m a purveyor of this beauty. Thankful these creators make my job so much easier, working with impossibly luxurious and beautiful fabrics and furniture.

I have heard it said that there is nothing new under the sun, that is so true yet there is always a new perspective. Reflecting on our first appointment visiting the headquarters of Pierre Frey. From the first steps up the spiral staircase walls imbued with Trompe l’oeil. The director and the artist there to welcome us to their home, so to speak. On our final ascent we reach the creative floor encased with mood boards, vintage fabrics tied with colorful ribbons, scraps of wallpaper scattered about. The creative energy was pulsing. The creative spark that started the ball rolling was evident. Vintage fabric was reimagined… blowing up the image, new colors, reinventing. Ideas were culled from this fabric or an 18th century wallpaper to create something fresh, whimsical, and new.

What was I seeking by traveling 10 hours to and from Paris, flying over Greenland and Iceland, trekking so many miles for a mere 6 days. What was there that wasn’t here?

A different point of view, a refresh of my creative soul. A fill up of petrol maybe.

The annual event for Interior Designers has been on my wish list for years so I thought why wait any longer? I’m not getting any younger, this is the most robust I will be for the rest of my life so give it a go. It was a much needed respite from the day in and day out. Not only through connection with other creatives but also immersing myself in a culture other than the one that I experience daily. A culture that reveres beauty and honors the thoughtful and painstaking road from idea to fruition. Every step of the way labored over, analyzed, reviewed, analyzed again, reviewed again.

It is so easy for me to get stuck in a rut of day to day mindless activity, heralding that I am just too busy to venture out of my neighborhood. Thinking that I need to mind the business every hour, every day. A trip away for a week will prove that is just not true.

It is the break from the everyday that fills my lungs with fresh air. Gives my mind pause and opens the receptors. New neural pathways carve the way for what could be.

Although longing for home and routine again it was hard to say good-bye, to not be so immersed in the texture, color, luxury, the monuments, the river, the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. Not hearing the pulsing sound and beating of the creative drum.

Au Revoir Paris…until next time when my soul longs to fill my lungs, heart, mind and body with the creative spirit you offer to the world.

Sarah speaks of following the rhythm of your heart. Just as nature has its rhythms so do we. As a self preservation instinct I have a rhythm of waking and sleeping, eating, exercise and comfort pretty well set. I can feel the rhythms when I am creating, in the zone of writing, or imagining what beauty lies within an ordinary flower peaking out of a crack in the sidewalk.

Tasks, for me, do not have rhythms … even sharing the word task is telling of how I feel about my do list. Get it done, get it done with as much efficiency, with little effort, and as quickly as possible so it can be marked off my list and move onto the next. Rhythms do not need to be written down tasks do.

Recently while shopping for our Christmas tree my daughter and I spent some time looking at all the trees. It was a crisp night with the smell of pine in the air and fresh cut wood. Pretty quickly into our excursion we had found our adorable Noble fir we named, Mrs. Potts. Big and round at the bottom, stout and squat. With that task done we could spend some time strolling through the remaining trees, hot cider in hand. There were trees of every size and shape with some of the really tall ones, 20 feet or so, being prepared for a local pageant, flocked as if with heavy snow from the night before and sparkling with twinkling lights. I was mesmerized by how the lighting specialists had wrapped each branch with the string of lights rather than laying them on the branches like I do every year, trying unsuccessfully to hide the cords.

Foolishly I tried this at home not realizing the investment in time or money in the end. There was much success at first and I was impressed with the outcome, even glee with pride in my work. So I labored on soon running out of my existing lights and having only covered the bottom third of the tree. Little did I realize this method of lighting was going to take 3 times as many lights and more than that in labor. So off to the store I went for 3 more packs of lights, the box promising proudly that the LEDs looked just like incandescent lights do with the warm glow, they did not so back to the store they go.

Trusting Amazon instead I bought the three additional packs needed. Only another third of the tree was lit, this didn’t make sense as Mrs. Potts is narrower at the top than the bottom, back to Amazon for another 3 packs…you see where this is going. We have now had the tree for ten days and it is still not completely lit. So I buy another 3 packs to finish off the tree. After installing 12 packs of new lights and very satisfied with a job well done that night I sleep soundly with great contentment. Only to wake up the next morning, flip the switch for the tree lights and nothing happens. I have to admit I didn’t heed the instructions that said these only support 5 strings for every one electrical cord. Somehow I thought I knew more than the experts… I was electrically overloaded. So out come the extension cords and power strip. The upper part of the tree has been restored with powe, but not the lower portion. After much investigation I source the problem…the bottom, an old string, has broken down with the overload. Orders go out for another 3 packs from Amazon to replace these. I have now made a sizable investment in tree lights and in time, all for the perfection of the look. So at this point what was a task that was to be finished in one evening has become a chore instead.

The inner demons start to play havoc with my mind. “Why am I doing this, spending so much time and money?” “No one else in the family cares as much about the tree as I do”. “You’re wasting your time when you could be doing so many other things.” “Finish it already, do it the old way”. I question what is powering me on to spend so much time to light the tree in this manner….but there is no going back now. In that moment it comes to me that I love the look of the lit tree, savoring it while I sit and read on the sofa nearby snuggled in my down comforter. Every night of the holidays the tree is lit reflecting in the window nearby, the twinkling lights sparkle on each branch. I realize now that what was a task turned to a chore is actually now a rhythm, or has it always been a rhythm, a labor of love? One savored year after year.

With tasks I have not learned to take time with what I am doing, especially I haven’t learned to enjoy the process and celebrate its completion. The difference I find with a rhythm is that there is patience, an attunement to what I am doing, a cadence to the process. When securing the lights to every branch of the tree I found it meditative…not concentrating on how quickly I could get the job done, really not thinking about anything at all. The revery was in how it was being done, the process and being in the moment.

Wondering what would happen if another task became a rhythm instead…would my days become more peaceful by focusing on the process not the result?

The view from my window, in the hotel I‘ve become so familiar with of late, faces East. It is my intention to face this direction as on a clear day the sunrise is breathtaking. It is funny that we call it sunrise because the truth of the matter is we are moving toward the sun not the other way around…at an alarming speed we nary detect.

High in the air on the top floor of the hotel I can see for miles. The cock crows to awake me to the broad stretch of reds and oranges spread out before me… changing ever so minutely moment by moment. Turning golden, then a whisper of pink. The crest of the sun peeking over the hills on the other side of the Bay, a penetrating orange glow forms a ball of fire, becoming larger and ever larger as it moves further into the sky. Moving so high now there is little color left, just a powerful ball of heat and light. It is only because my weekly morning meeting requires an early rise that I am privy to this audacious display of color, light and nature. If I take a moment of pause I realize this happens every morning and has been happening every morning for millenia… day after day, week after week, year after year. Without fail. Whether I am present or not.

“When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps.”

John Lennon

Recently my husband and I watched a well received, internationally acclaimed, and soulful movie “That They May Face The Rising Sun“. Set in Ireland it is a quirky little tale narrated by a writer, one of the main character’s in the story, who lives in a small village with his wife. Odd characters set in their ways come in and out of their day, bringing trouble and chaos to their doorstep. The couple ever so calm despite the disruptions. As the movie progresses, while he is helping a neighbor, on occasion the writer slowly lifts his chin to the light of the sun, allowing himself to fully absorb the sun’s warm rays, a glow sets about his cheek and there is a moment of pause, peace, and tranquility. He at this moment is in a world of his own and away from the maddening crowd around him.

“I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.”

William Shakespeare

This reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in “Pride & Prejudice”. Elizabeth riding in her uncles’ carriage as they journey through the countryside while on holiday. She laying in the back, eyes closed, as the carriage makes it’s way through the woods the trees above flicker with the sun’s rays casting golden light and leaf like shadows on her resting face.

As I try to still the beat of my heart and silence my mind and body an image I remember again and again is to visualize myself lying on a soft blanket in a rolling meadow, hills in the distance. The surrounding yellow grass waving in the whisper of the wind, the golden sun warming my face. Just like the light flickering on Elizabeth’s face or the sun warming the writer’s cheeks. As I work to stay in the moment I can feel the heat of the sun, the warmth on my skin, the slow healing of my soul from all the commotion and worries of living on this planet… silencing the clamor of voices trying to get my attention. On other occasions I envision myself walking the mossy banks of a river, my dog by my side, listening to the faint sound of the ripple of the water as it makes it’s way over the rocks. This morning I find myself readying for the day, the sun is making its westward journey illuminating my garden along the way. In the backyard tiny birds are on the ground in search of new droppings, they jump and peck, jump and peck, again and again Hummingbirds flit here and there stopping momentarily to feed on our passion fruit vine. As I face the window the warmth of the sun fills my face…I pause momentarily to soak in the gift it is presenting to me today.

I am thankful.

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”

Henry David Thoreau

Time and again I turn toward these visions to quiet my mind and heal my heart. Nature softening my soul with the warmth of the sun, the whisper of the wind, the vibrant color of the sunset. There is something healing about turning toward nature, letting it enter your soul, surround your heart. Something grounding in the largeness of it, with big rocks and crashing waves. Something wild that cannot be tamed, something dangerous… a sun that would burn you if you ventured too close. I see that nature’s heart continues to beat no matter what goes on around it. It is not to be moved, it doesn’t care that I ate too much chocolate that day it will still welcome me under its great branches, into it’s woods. It will still bless me with puffy clouds even when I am late for work. It waits patiently for me to come visit, to turn my head from distraction and face the healing powers that come naturally from a walk by the shore, crashing waves sending wistful sprays of mist into the air.

I am grateful.

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more”

Lord Byron

I am finally waking up, really waking up to my own reality, to the truth of myself. It has been a long slow burn gathering new ways to look at life, myself, and others. Therapy, the wisdom of the Enneagram, an abundance of reading & podcasts have all laid the groundwork for this moment. This is a new moment in time, a new understanding. It is not the first time I have experienced a breakthrough of understanding myself and others more deeply. I know it won’t be the last as I have not fully “arrived” nor will I do so in this lifetime, the journey will continue.

This waking up feels like the light bulb has been turned on and can never be dimmed again. Thinking I actually was living as a human being was my illusion. This distorted view of myself has taken years to unravel, to be able to see what is actually there, as if I saw dimly…now the fog has been wiped away exposing the view…now seeing in a mirror clearly.

The saying of a human doing rather than a human being is not new to me. Productivity rather than experiencing the minutes of the day. the spaces between, the people around me. Accomplishing, being moral, being good, doing that which was expected of me…all point to the doing rather than the being.

In my 20’s while exploring the Meyer’s Briggs personality test, the description of my type, ENFJ, warned of objectifying people in service of getting the job done. Caring more for what people could do for me rather than caring for them. I could see this so clearly in my dad and maybe a bit in myself but tried to keep it in check, keep it under wraps. Watching my dad at work and “using” others was despicable to me, a sure sign that I was not able to admit this is exactly what I did more often than not. As I view my life in the rear view mirror the discovery is that my human doing-ness was more pervasive than I thought. My kids were objects that needed to learn and grow morally, to act responsibly, to be good people. Husband was to be a good father, husband, and faithful. Friends were there when I needed them for something rather than someone to enjoy, to be with, to get to know. They filled a space and they were a mission all in the service to being seen as “good”, a good person. This is hard to admit and even harder to read the truth of my words. No wonder I felt disgust when I saw others doing exactly what I was afraid of in myself. Always a tell tale sign to look deeper when we have a knee jerk reaction to other’s behaviors.

As life will have it your children are the ones, once of age or not, that point out the obvious…the lies we have told ourselves for years. Why wouldn’t they, they see everything, they see our all. The ins and outs, the good bad and ugly. Unbeknownst to us as parents when we think we are giving them everything they need they get deprived of what we don’t have to give them…the ability to see ourselves and to see them. We want to make them good and in the process become good ourselves.

As little ones they want to belong to us and emulate us, they are informed by our reactions and behavior so it is no surprise when they struggle as they get older. When my daughter and I started to take a deep dive in examining our relationship my desire was to be nurturing yet my first thought was what she should do, how I could “fix” her, put the bandage on and send her on her way to a good life. The parade of performative thoughts continued on. How should I act as a good mom? What does she want from me? Haven’t I given her enough through out her life? I wasn’t able to see her for herself, see her need to be seen, my brain was so stuck on the performance I actually didn’t know how to be nurturing, show her care and kindness, shouldn’t that come naturally as a mom?

I just now am learning the craft, the craft of nurturing, seeing my kids for who they are rather than what they do. I see how focused I was on raising “good” kids that would do the right thing, be successful. This is not to say that when they were kids that we didn’t give them love, experience many times of enjoyment being together, doing things together, traveling together, creating a loving household. But the overarching emphasis was being a “good” parent and them being “good” children. It put a shadow on everything.

“I would rather be whole than good.”. Carl Jung

The question that directed my life for so long has been “How do I perform so I look like a good person, the person I aspire to be?” The person who did what was expected, did the right thing or what I thought was expected of me as the right thing. According to Dr. Brad Reedy, we do our second growing just about the time our kids do theirs. No wonder my daughter and I are exploring our relationship and exposing old wounds. Our trajectory is a little later in the game of life but needed to happen for me to become whole rather than good.

Hiding from myself in a shroud of being a good person rather than just a person warts and all. And I do have them, physically they were burned off years ago but I still bear the scars. And the scars of objectifying others. Objectifying myself. One who did what was expected, did the right thing or what I thought was expected of me as the right thing. One who saw myself through my parents eyes as the strong one who took care of herself, who wasn’t in the way and didn’t cause trouble (at least not that they knew of…feeling a bit bad right now for that mailman we pummeled with pomegranates as kids from my neighbors tree). The badness, the wholeness was hidden behind the false goodness.

“I’ve always done what is proper rather than follow my heart. “

Elizabeth Bligh from “A Place to Call Home”

Living the lie of being unseen, unheard, even unwanted…there is a deep fear that if I utter these words out loud it means it is true. Am I an object just displacing air on this earth or am I really living in it, enjoying it, scooping up its goodness? Am I learning to enjoy my relationships with others, sharing my life, sharing our sameness yet the differences between us?

Since my awakening less now revolves around whether I am good or not, whether I measure up, whether I am worthy and more on who I am, how I want to live and what I want to do. More on living to be who was I created to be, to connecting with another as a human being rather than a provider of something. No longer a reflection of what others want me to be rather than the real me. No longer a reflection of what I do.

As part of the awareness the desire to spend time with others just because not for a goal or any other reason other than our togetherness has blossomed. Spending time by the shore not for the perfect photo of the magnificent waves crashing onto the craggy rocks but for the inhale of the sea air, the crisp wind stroking my face, the spindrift enshrouding me in mist. Sharing a moment of companionship, of togetherness, of being.

What exactly does it mean to be whole rather than good? It is so simple really but also the hardest thing in the world. It is to allow all of you, to notice the judgements, ill thoughts of others without judgement and to say “isn’t that interesting ?” rather than condemning oneself for having such “awful” thoughts. It is to recognize that you will make mistakes, make a fool of yourself like everyone else, not be perfect, not achieve all your goals, that you will fail and that is a part of life, a part of learning. Accept that I will always be this beautiful, silly, flawed masterpiece…just like you.

If you want to know more about being whole I suggest listening to the Podcast “Finding You” with Dr. Brad Reedy.

I always feel like I am moving against the grain of life. Everybody wants to go one way and I want to do the opposite. All gathering in groups as I move to be alone. It wasn’t always this way for me as a youth. I remember deeply wanting to fit in, belong to the “In” crowd, to be seen, maybe not for who I was but to show the world I mattered. To know I was popular and wanted. At the time my childish self did not realize that popularity wasn’t real, that it really wouldn’t feed the hunger in my soul.

The other day I was pondering why life is so hard on people who willingly go against the grain. At that very moment the fashion designer, Halston, popped into my mind. In the 70’s Halston took the fashion world captive with his streamline gowns that flattered the figure rather than augmenting it with fussy details. He had a distinct vision that was clearly against the grain, a revolution and new way to see the world. In the mini series Halston was portrayed as a trailblazer, but also a deeply troubled man dying to be special, to be noticed, to be esteemed. He had ideas that were different than others with a drive to change the world at the same time a deep wound to feel special and desire to belong. That’s the dilemma…how do we do both? Honor who we are and belong?

What does it take to go against the grain of life like Halston? What does it take to be bold enough with your ideas. What wounding in our growing up years drive us to express ourselves creatively? How do we have the capacity to withstand the mental strain to stand alone, while trying to convince the world of our ideas? What is the toll on one’s life when we feel alone and misunderstood?

We have seen this toll many times in creatives as they press to be different, to exert their ideas, their differences. Yet feel alone, sad, and depressed. To fight to be you can be a tough road...to go against our conditioning to be seen as good, like others, and fit in. But what is this cost of leaving your distinctiveness behind?

One of the best, yet, hardest lessons I learned about fitting in was in junior high. Months of wondering “Will he notice me?“, the very popular boy I passed in the hallway everyday as we switched classes. “Will he think I’m cute?Am I worth his regard? “ . Then that day came, he did notice me, stopped to talk to me to tell me if I left my best friend behind I could hang out with him and his popular buddies. There were terms to his “friendship”, a test of sorts….give up my unpopular friend to be with him and his ever so popular buds. This violated every bone in my body, everything that I stood for, values that had been ingrained in me since birth. Yet, I did just as he had asked of me, possessed by the lure of being someone special, I said goodbye to my childhood friend. Many stories, at this point, would say that I never looked back but that is not what happened for me. Immediately there was hatred for the cute boy, for the people who would only accept me if I abandoned a friend. No longer was there a smidgen of desire to be with them, they were a bad taste in my mouth…. at the same time I also had lost my best friend, someone who I had hurt deeply. Fitting in and popularity had been more important than loyalty. I learned the hard way belonging had to come on my terms, belonging on my own terms is much different than fitting in.

In our own way we are all supposed to move against the grain and fight the pull to fit in. To belong is different, belonging is an acceptance of ourselves and of others…quirks and all. What is the difference between fitting in and belonging? Belonging on your own terms?

I have heard experts define fitting in as changing yourself or repressing what you don’t think will be accepted by others, to deny our uniqueness to be seen as the same as others. The difference with belonging is that you are accepted for who you are…all of you, every little bit, the good bad and ugly. All of us are a mixed bag of good and bad, cracked pots with vulnerabilities and fissures….shadows lurking in the caves of our minds.

In my experience we do not always celebrate the crazy ones Steve Jobs talks about in his quote. The ones who view life from a different perspective. As expressed so aptly sometimes we vilify them, spread gossip about them, bully them, hold them at arm’s length lest we have to examine our own lives, what we aren’t willing to express for fear of rejection. We are all misfits, really, in a world that doesn’t understand us. We never feel we quite measure up, that we don’t belong, that we are different, maybe even unlovable. If the call inside our minds to move against the grain isn’t loud enough then we start cutting off those pieces of ourselves, the ones that might look a bit different than others, the characteristics that won’t be accepted. I think of how we hide who we are and pretend we don’t have that burning inside to be ourselves. The gifts we could share with the world, if only we would accept them.

The lure to be yourself to listen to your heart or the lure to belong.

Can you have both?

We all inherently matter, we were all born with a distinct core personality, with special gifts that are ours and ours alone, that will make a difference to the world we live in. Some of us don’t see this clearly and walk the path already created by another, something someone imagined for us rather than what we wanted for ourselves. Some of us have pushed those ideas so far down that we don’t even recognize them as belonging to us. Others create their own path but this does not come without a cost. To stand up to criticism, to be illuminated in the limelight, to be seen as “different”, marching to your own drummer so to speak. We are frail humans, gloriously gifted, yet so vulnerable to what others think about us. How do we hear our own voice over the shouting of the crowd? The allure of the room?

There is a cost either way, drop who we really are to fit in or accept ourselves, our whole selves, to belong with the possibility of rejection, possibility to be misunderstood.

I wonder why the world can be so hard on people who have sensitivity, have creativity. Thinking of Halston and his search for significance and meaning as he gains celebrity but found it was really an empty shell. It didn’t give him what he truly longed for, of true belonging of who he really was, all of his angry outbursts, the raging, his beauty and creativity. What was the internal fire that could not be quenched?

It doesn’t have to be that way, we can honor ourselves our true selves when we accept ourselves but this takes a bit of work. “It takes a minute” as Ian Morgan Cron from the Typology podcast likes to say. It does take time, maybe a lifetime, but it is the path to freedom, to joy, to love, to fulfillment, to the beauty of you.

Who I listen to to discover the beauty inside me:

Podcasts:

Dr. Brad Reedy - “Finding You” Podcast

Ian Morgan Cron -“Typology “ Podcast

Dr. Chip Dodd & Bryan Barley - “Living with Heart” Podcast

Books:

Reedy, Dr. Brad M. (2020) The Audacity To Be You : Learning To Love Your Horrible Rotten Self (Reedy, Dr. Brad M [Audiobook}. Publisher Reedy, Dr. Brad M.

The first yard was the most poignant for me, the owners pointing out different species of plants. Expanding on how they had created a little knoll for height variation, a rock wall for definition, the many various colors of Monkey Flower, counting 8 in their yard. I could hear, feel, and see the toil and care that they had poured into their garden for the last 20 or so years. A labor of love, crafting every square inch of soil, imbuing Japanese techniques, revealing beauty slowly, exposing a layer and then another as you walk around the next bend, creating a soft and subtle entrance to their Asian influenced craftsman style home.

As the day went on each garden we viewed revealed the personality of the owners. A story captured in each garden, expressing an image of the joy their garden brings to them daily, their tranquil respite. Touring our local gardens opened my eyes to what was right in front of me, little pockets of loveliness I had never noticed before. I was surprised that I hadn’t seen what was there right ther before my eyes blinded due to my prejudice and envy of Carmel’s gardens.

As an Enneagram Four I know our shadow well…envy. Envy not in the traditional sense, not “I want what you have” but more of a feeling that I lack the skills, talent, tools (the list goes on) that you have to get what you have, that there is something missing in me to warrant that beautiful garden or beautiful life. We all have our shadows that blind us from seeing clearly.

In so many ways the garden presents a metaphor for life…Planting and tending a garden is hard work full of toil and can take years to form and grow. It is the beauty of my garden now after 10 years of a labour filled with love that brings me joy. With every weed I pluck from the ground and trim of a branch I release the plants to reveal their beauty within, without distraction. With every envious weed that grows in my mind I can see the pain it causes me and the chains that keep me tethered to small mindedness, a choke hold on living freely and enjoying what is right in front of me. Just as a weed can choke out a beautiful plant. As I acknowledge their existence and notice the habits that comes with it I inch closer to a freedom to learn from the pain, to live deeper, differently. To know that all belongs whether rangy and scruffy, well attended to or not. It lessens the constant message that something is missing.

Learning to look on the inside rather than the outside, for both ourselves and those that come across our path, leads to the riches in life.

I accept easily that you are mixed bag in your motives and behaviors and that you make mistakes which makes you all the more lovable to me, but somehow, in my mind the same rules do not apply to me. Why? What is at stake here that has an iron grip on whether I am good or not? Why is being good or seen as good so very important?

Is it our conditioning from generation to generation to think in these terms… good or evil, right or wrong? We seem to feel compelled as parents to make sure our kids know when they have been good or bad, when they have performed well or poorly. It is what we learned from our parents and them from theirs. If we think about our conditioning and our default way of thinking we are able to see examples of how we categorize so quickly. We benignly say “Oh what a good baby” to the little one who doesn’t make a fuss and “What’s wrong with that baby” about the other one who cries all the time. Categorization is a useful tool to create order in our brain and to not feel overwhelmed with the flood of incoming information but not so helpful for compassionate living…for ourselves or others.

Not only through our families but we possibly could be conditioned as well through the movies, we watch, the books we read, the schools we attend, and more. I love movies, love love love love love-especially when there is a lot of action….bad and good pitted against each other, who will win? Just saw Final Reckoning the other day. Ethan, our hero, fighting to save the day. Yet, in the movie there is an underlying question that lingers, is Ethan good or is he evil? He breaks the rules, no doubt, to succeed at his goal but at what cost? Did he betray his boss or was he justly correct in accusing him of treason? In hindsight it is refreshing to think of our hero as someone who might have mixed motives. But I do remember a jut wrenching internal scream answering the question “Nooooo, Ethan is good, do not question that…you see my default conditioning at work.

In reality I find life is more nuanced than good and evil, right and wrong. Recently listening to a podcast shed some light on my dilemma, the speaker explains that a healthy mind is about integrating a whole sense of self rather than thinking in polarities…I’m either good or bad. It does us harm to think in those limited terms, we reject ourself to look good for others or to appease the inner voice that needs constant soothing. Instead we can accept the wholeness of ourselves, sometimes doing good in the world’s eyes other times selfishly not… a mixed bag. So let’s stop pretending to be good and just be ourselves, much easier said than done I might add. We have a lifetime of conditioning that we need to rewrite on the neural pathways of our minds.

Is it possible we contain both good and bad? Does our goodness or badness, wherever the scale tips, define us or are we all a mixture of both? According to the author of the podcast there are psychological consequences of living in this world of good or bad. He gives his Golden Retriever, Oak, as an example of being conditioned to please as if his survival depended on it. Full of anxiety and wanting to be seen as good. Are we bringing up children who feel inadequate? If they are not successful they are bad, they haven’t tried hard enough, don’t have the stuff of resilience or the equipment other people seem to be born with. Their pack was empty but other’s packs seemed to be full of tools and resources they just seem to lack.

What if there is another way? A way that is human, flawed and lovely at the same time, that accepts both the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, to be able to live in the mess. Getting it right sometimes and other times not but that’s ok cause that is how we learn. What if it is about the journey not the arrival. We are always in such a hurry for the arrival or the silver bullet that will cure us but that is not haw life works, it is the journey of life long learning, trial and error. What of the moments where we accept what is there right in front of us? The here and now..allowing what is.

It has been helpful to listen to this podcast and to understand that I am fighting against generational conditioning to think in polarized terms rather than accepting the cohesive self and learning to just be. Be myself, let my whole self be seen.

For subscribers:

What I find beautiful about this?

Although it probably has resonated in the recesses of my mind Ifor some time now have never thought to challenge the strongholds of the generational conditioning of being seen as good or bad, at least not this blatantly. Never challenged that there might be another way to view our humanity. I have always believed that we have been created uniquely, with gifts only we have to give to the world. But living this out has been strangled by the underlying desire to be good, to be seen as good, to do the right thing, to fit in. Never entered my mind that the right thing for me might be different than the right thing for you as we uniquely see through different lenses and with different perspectives, and that is all okay. There isn’t a right or wrong answer. Just our answer for us at this time in life.

What is beautiful about this is the freedom it affords me. I am freed from striving, from being better, from improving myself. I only need to discover myself and recover what I have repressed or rejected because I might not be accepted if I let that part of me be known. As I was listening to the book “The Audacity to be You” by Dr. Brad Reedy, for the third or fourth time, I was rounding the bend just South of Gilroy making my way up to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is then that I noticed the hills with the golden brown glow of summer, how they layered upon each other becoming a mere mist in the distance. I would attribute noticing the wonder of the hillsides at that moment to feeling free to be me, free from the anxiety of pleasing, doing what is right, worrying about what others think of me. An unoccupied mind free to see the wonders of what was right in front of me. What about you, what makes you free? Free to be you?

My inspirations for this writing-

The Podcast

Finding You: by Dr. Brad Reedy: Guest Host Travis Slagle on The Myth of Being Good - Ep 479, Jul 27, 2022

This material may be protected by copyright.

The Book

I accept easily that you are mixed bag in your motives and behaviors and that you make mistakes which makes you all the more lovable to me, but somehow, in my mind the same rules do not apply to me. Why? What is at stake here that has an iron grip on whether I am good or not? Why is being good or seen as good so very important?

Is it our conditioning from generation to generation to think in these terms… good or evil, right or wrong? We seem to feel compelled as parents to make sure our kids know when they have been good or bad, when they have performed well or poorly. It is what we learned from our parents and them from theirs. If we think about our conditioning and our default way of thinking we are able to see examples of how we categorize so quickly. We benignly say “Oh what a good baby” to the little one who doesn’t make a fuss and “What’s wrong with that baby” about the other one who cries all the time. Categorization is a useful tool to create order in our brain and to not feel overwhelmed with the flood of incoming information but not so helpful for compassionate living…for ourselves or others.

Not only through our families but we possibly could be conditioned as well through the movies, we watch, the books we read, the schools we attend, and more. I love movies, love love love love love-especially when there is a lot of action….bad and good pitted against each other, who will win? Just saw Final Reckoning the other day. Ethan, our hero, fighting to save the day. Yet, in the movie there is an underlying question that lingers, is Ethan good or is he evil? He breaks the rules, no doubt, to succeed at his goal but at what cost? Did he betray his boss or was he justly correct in accusing him of treason? In hindsight it is refreshing to think of our hero as someone who might have mixed motives. But I do remember a jut wrenching internal scream answering the question “Nooooo, Ethan is good, do not question that…you see my default conditioning at work.

In reality I find life is more nuanced than good and evil, right and wrong. Recently listening to a podcast shed some light on my dilemma, the speaker explains that a healthy mind is about integrating a whole sense of self rather than thinking in polarities…I’m either good or bad. It does us harm to think in those limited terms, we reject ourself to look good for others or to appease the inner voice that needs constant soothing. Instead we can accept the wholeness of ourselves, sometimes doing good in the world’s eyes other times selfishly not… a mixed bag. So let’s stop pretending to be good and just be ourselves, much easier said than done I might add. We have a lifetime of conditioning that we need to rewrite on the neural pathways of our minds.

Is it possible we contain both good and bad? Does our goodness or badness, wherever the scale tips, define us or are we all a mixture of both? According to the author of the podcast there are psychological consequences of living in this world of good or bad. He gives his Golden Retriever, Oak, as an example of being conditioned to please as if his survival depended on it. Full of anxiety and wanting to be seen as good. Are we bringing up children who feel inadequate? If they are not successful they are bad, they haven’t tried hard enough, don’t have the stuff of resilience or the equipment other people seem to be born with. Their pack was empty but other’s packs seemed to be full of tools and resources they just seem to lack.

What if there is another way? A way that is human, flawed and lovely at the same time, that accepts both the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, to be able to live in the mess. Getting it right sometimes and other times not but that’s ok cause that is how we learn. What if it is about the journey not the arrival. We are always in such a hurry for the arrival or the silver bullet that will cure us but that is not haw life works, it is the journey of life long learning, trial and error. What of the moments where we accept what is there right in front of us? The here and now..allowing what is.

It has been helpful to listen to this podcast and to understand that I am fighting against generational conditioning to think in polarized terms rather than accepting the cohesive self and learning to just be. Be myself, let my whole self be seen.

What I find beautiful about this…

Subscribe now

Although it probably has resonated in the recesses of my mind for some time now I have never thought to challenge the strongholds of the generational conditioning of being seen as good or bad, at least not this blatantly. Never challenged that there might be another way to view our humanity. I have always believed that we have been created uniquely, with gifts only we have to give to the world. But living this out has been strangled by the underlying desire to be good, to be seen as good, to do the right thing, to fit in. Never entered my mind that the right thing for me might be different than the right thing for you as we uniquely see through different lenses and with different perspectives, and that is all okay. There isn’t a right or wrong answer. Just our answer for us at this time in life.

What is beautiful about this is the freedom it affords me. I am freed from striving, from being better, from improving myself. I only need to discover myself and recover what I have repressed or rejected because I might not be accepted if I let that part of me be known. As I was listening to the book “The Audacity to be You” by Dr. Brad Reedy, for the third or fourth time, I was rounding the bend just South of Gilroy making my way up to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is then that I noticed the hills with the golden brown glow of summer, how they layered upon each other becoming a mere mist in the distance. I would attribute noticing the wonder of the hillsides at that moment to feeling free to be me, free from the anxiety of pleasing, doing what is right, worrying about what others think of me. An unoccupied mind free to see the wonders of what was right in front of me, in that time and space. What about you, what makes you free? Free to be you?

What do I accomplish by checking off each item listed on the ever present to do list, do I feel better about myself? Do I belong because of what I have accomplished, am I worthy? Earning my worth rather than abiding in the worth that is inherent in just being? Things have to get done but without boundaries this constant task master can be relentless. And to what end? To be ruled by it? What of the here and now? The moments?

Where is the list named HERE & NOW?

Sometimes what I feel I must get done keeps me from the effort of being social, of actually connecting with another. It can be my escape, my excuse to not get involved, to withdraw. It can become a distraction that becomes bad for me rather than good. Not too long ago I was invited by a long time friend to visit her in a town just outside of Nashville. It was an opportunity at an inopportune time. Aren’t they all? Despite my intellectual murmurings and underlying things on my mind that had to get done, I wanted to jump at the chance. I went anyway despite the mental chatter saying turn back now. What am I doing flying halfway across the country, I am so busy with work and can’t keep up? Why take this trip? Am I crazy? I was on the plane but still not convinced I was doing the right thing.

Once there I was struck by the infusion of warmth, love, support, acceptance in those days with my friend…this is the here and now of life. The sustenance, the being. It was just what I needed. I believe we are created for the here and now, not the To Do list, which for me is a distraction from what is good and true in my life.

One of several special moments on this trip was our visit to The Listening Room Cafe in Nashville. An intimate venue with small tables where a light meal was served while enjoying the sounds. When you sign up for The Listening Room, my friend tells me, you don’t fully know who you will see that evening, the surprise is the beauty. Honestly I love music of many genres but do not know artist’ or songwriter’s names, so it wouldn’t really matter if I knew who was playing that night or not. As the night unfolded 4 songwriters emerged, each with their own stories that they unfurl as they play a little and sing a little. One an American Idol winner (who would have guessed? Ok, I am sorely not in the know), another in the same contest ,who was not a winner, yet the two remained friends. He having his own moment at another time. Another who wrote “A Thousand Years” for the Twilight movies, being asked to write a song about vampire love and a friend had to educate him on the Trilogy of famous books. Who would have known? Not me, it’s hard enough to remember my own name these days. “A thousand years” was a very special song I selected to be played at my wedding.

What strikes so profoundly are the stories of how the songs developed, the collaboration between artist’s and how their lives intertwine. Each had a song that represented them “making” it yet they continue to enjoy just playing, jamming and writing songs together. That night the host of the show was celebrating his birthday. The shots kept coming from the bar and audience, we were there to celebrate with him. It felt intimate, like we belonged. Enjoying this space in time, we were in the moment, the life we were meant to live where we join as human beings that need each other for sustenance, for love, for life. This is the Here and Now. This is Holy Ground and we need to remove our shoes to acknowledge the depth of what is happening in your soul and in mine as we gather together.

We do not always like each other, understand each other, or agree but we do need each other in ways that are hard to describe. We become affected by what is right in front of us, the here and the now. This is it, this is all there is. The To Do list will vanish, mere ash blown away by the wind never making a mark. Yet we do, we make our mark, we imprint upon each other’s lives. We create stories together.

It is good to have a to do list but not if it has a stranglehold on your life and leaves no room for others, for belonging. I struggle with prioritizing doing over being. I know it is unrealistic to think that we can live without the To Do List….without it nothing would ever get accomplished. Yet, I have learned we have to be nimble enough to recognize a moment that we do not want to miss. no matter how busy. A moment that may come at an inconvenient time yet will make a profound impact on our lives.

Several days ago was Mother’s Day, I really didn’t want to go to the obligatory lunch or dinner, wasn’t interested in receiving a present or flowers. So my daughter and I planned a simple outing for the early evening. Before our plans in my mind I had a list I wanted to accomplish that day, oh that would feel so good…to put a line through each and every item, watching the list grow smaller with every stroke. Yet life had a different idea about the day. After finishing my planting in the garden in the late afternoon I soon saw that much of my list was gonna stay exactly where it was, on the list. Things always take longer than I think, my eyes bigger than my stomach. After her workday was finished my daughter and I had planned to spend time together at Asilomar, a favorite viewing spot to watch the sunset. Asilomar is a very special retreat center set on the sand dunes at the edge of the craggy coastline. Inviting little Adirondack chairs sit in front of the Great Hall facing West precisely in the direction where the sun rests its head at night. A lovely little cafe is nearby in case you didn’t bring your own snacks. This is where we would spend our time celebrating mother-daughter together. Upon arrival many guests of the center had already gone home and there was a quiet stillness in the air, a calm tranquility. We spotted a tucked away place, a small glass conference room surrounded by a wrap around deck that afforded a perfect view of the water, so we abandoned the idea of the Adirondack chairs. We laid out our cheese and crackers, a little salami and chocolate covered strawberries for dessert, a bit of bubbly for me. A few crows came to visit, probably seeking food not our company, seeing none they quickly found another hunting ground. My daughter and I talked, we laughed, we joked all in the presence of this wildly beautiful coastal wilderness. The sounds of the sea and the smell of the ocean air soothing our souls. Finishing our meal, like bandits, we stole into the conference room where my daughter showed me her new learned skill on the piano. We oohed and aahed as the round sun cast golden hues across the water, flattened and dipped over the horizon…say hello to China for us!

Sometimes life happens when you let it, when you keep things loose, where life becomes fluid. I know years from now I will remember this time shared with my daughter more than what I had accomplished on the list that day. I will remember the stories from my trip to Nashville with friends rather than the pile of work that was still there when I got back.

With my To Do List in hand I will keep my eyes open for the Here and Now opportunities that brings me life, that feed my soul, that give me nourishment. Will you join me?

As we were exiting a taxi on our way to the restaurant my colleague asked me if I had voted that day. I had not I told her, I could have lied but didn’t. Her response was “I just think we need to do our part”. I felt shamed at that moment, a bit like a bad person, felt a bit of a sting. It had been a busy day and a busy week working and preparing for travel, so voting was left on the back burner. Sometimes I just can’t get my act together to do the mail in ballot, it seems like a simple task but really for me it is not. This was years ago yet I still remember her rhetorical remark and my response, never uttered.

In reflection I would have answered her query with a resounding yes, there are things that are mine to do, mine not yours and yours not mine. Although shamed initially it did bring up the deeper question of what is mine to do?

What path will you follow?

Honestly, most of the time I do vote, not wanting to take that privilege for granted, yet at times it just doesn’t work out when other obligations have to take priority. I understand the importance of it to her. Things in her life were riding on the line, riding on the vote. The same was not true for me. To be honest I tend to shy away from politics as it is a loaded gun that I do not know how to handle. It overwhelms me to watch the news and makes me depressed after doing so, not knowing who to believe and who to trust. So I leave this to others, others who have the vested interest and the knowledge. I rest in knowing it is in good hands.

Suzanne Stabile, an accomplished and trusted Enneagram teacher and author, often poses the question “What is mine to do?”. It is a difficult question that takes time to answer, not off the cuff but truly searching our soul. We can get sidetracked by all the good things that can be done in the world. All the things we have been told should be done, things we should care about. “What is mine to do?” is a clarifying question that begs a thoughtful answer and this answer directs the course of our lives.

None of us can do it all, nor are we meant to.

We each are gifted in different ways and with that comes a unique bent that speaks in a special way to the world. Some have a gift to care for children or for the elderly. Others to create songs that resonate in our deepest soul but cannot be uttered to each other in any other way. Several build buildings that will outlive our lifetimes providing shelter to future generations. A good portion write code that helps us connect with others digitally. The nature minded take care and tend to the soil. The good few talented mathematicians help us with our financial health. The list of different and varied talents goes beyond my comprehension, yet all is valuable and important to us and to our survival. We cannot do it all.

There is something special that tugs at our coattails and won’t let go until we submit or we squelch. Some answer the call… others fear it.

What soil will you tend?

A few find their gifts early in life and others a bit later, some not at all. Many of us can get trapped in lives driven by what others think is best for us and we never quite capture or fight for what was truly there for us, continuing to ride the treadmill of a life others want them to live. We can get lost in the sea of options and the fear of those options. It is hard for me to watch others who seem to be afraid to go deeper and saddens me with an ache in my heart that they don’t want to know themselves more fully, to live their dreams.

Creativity has always been my interest since I was little, which has taken many forms over the years. When I was young, in my bedroom, I built and decorated homes for my Barbies and Troll families. All through school it was drawing & painting classes, too numerous to count. As a college graduate it was first expressed as a career in fashion and now a bit later as an Interior Designer. It has been a journey and an unfolding…it seems that is kinda how it works.

More recently I’ve found my creative voice through writing. The voice that I kept quiet as a child, not having enough emotional space left for me in my family. A voice that sometimes, okay much of the time, can be contrary to the crowd. One which can be dangerous to reveal, so most of the time it was my little secret silenced and hidden within me. A voice I kept to myself for a very long time.

Truthfully, thinking back on my life, there were so many dreams and inspirational ideas that did not surface because I thought others would laugh at me or discount me. I held myself back out of fear….as these things go it’s very hard to keep a lid on a boiling pot.

But the pot had boiled over…

What door shall you enter?

Challenging my husband over the color of a minivan landed me in therapy for the first time. In therapy I learned to ask for the color car I wanted, ask friends to help celebrate my birthday rather than wait passively until they noticed it was my special day…I learned to ask for what I wanted. Although I knew myself on the inside I had not dared share my inside with the outer world. Years later working with my therapist I relayed and an incident where my husband and my son had differing opinions on an issue in our household. I didn’t know who was right, my therapist wisely asked me “Well what does Jana think?” This was all too new to me to think I had a say, a voice, that I did not have to go along with what others thought was right, I could have an opinion too, I could disagree with others. I did not have to stay hidden.

Recently sharing a cup of coffee with a dear friend she asked about my plans for the future, what was I thinking? Knowing she is more practically minded than I am I questioned myself… would I take a chance of sharing truthfully knowing there was that risk of being misunderstood?. After revealing my outlandish dreams, she responded “I meant more practically”. It stung a bit and as usual, a little late to the game, I thought to myself I should have responded “What’s the fun in that?”.

The truth is for the first time I didn’t feel shame for my ideas, didn’t feel that they were too far-fetched. I know that she loves me and this is just her way. Her gifts are different than mine and if she doesn’t understand my dreams that’s ok. I understand them and that is what matters. I know what is mine to do.

What is yours to do?

The awareness of total immersion and presence when doing something I love brings me life and fullness, it gives me hope because honestly the ins and outs of life, the never ending to do list, the never meeting expectations (imaginary or not) can be utterly exhausting, hopeless and draining. I had heard someone once say that housework is like stringing pearls without a knot, never ending…as are many of the other chores of life.

I didn’t realize how important hope was to me until my husband and I were working on a values exercise included in a Brene Brown book, there are so many I can’t quite remember which one! The goal was to determine your core values... to find your guiding light. In the exercise you circle all you consider to be your values, distilling these down to the top two, all else is dependent on just these two. Okay I have to admit that was very hard, it is easy to name a bunch, but just two? It turns out one of my top values is hope. Surprise, surprise!

My coach and I are working together to make a list of draining tasks. Identifying what tasks just suck the life out of me, what makes me feel like a dried prune in the desert sun, nothing I mean nothing left to give. I suppose much the opposite of the zone. In identifying the tasks I would rather not do, the ones that suck the life out of me, it has also enlightened me to become more clear on those things I do love to do, the ones that feed hope and fill my cup.

With our busy lives we often let ourselves get distracted by what has to be done (or what we think has to be done) and never get to experience what makes us so present that we leave everything else behind. The parts of ourselves that are meant to be enjoyed and cherished. These are the things that bring us joy, that let all else fade away, the ones that feed our hope, our life. Whether it’s growing a tiny flower or building a skyscraper, it is our life blood to feel the joy and feed the hunger…the hunger of our souls.

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.”

Frederic Buechner

Thinking about the experience of being so present in the garden reminds me, that for me, it is the inspiration and the act of creating beauty that captures my attention. Whether digging deep in the dirt to plant a tree that will one day blossom and grow, ultimately provide shade with its long weeping limbs and, if all goes well, produce undeniably rich color and texture from its unfurling leaves or some thing else it does not matter.

Nothing in the background matters, all fades away and I am there present to the moment, seeing the possibilities unfold…that is what matters. I’m sure you have experienced this too when you hit your sweet spot. For me this is life and this is hope.

As I press on in life I find the importance of capturing as many of these moments as possible, like in the garden, filled with nothing but that very present moment, that one thing that brings me gladness. I wonder if you and I were sitting across from each other enjoying a cup of coffee or tea what you would tell me is the thing that keeps you going, what is your guiding light, what is the zone for you?

ear·nest¹

/ˈərnəst/

adjective

1. resulting from or showing sincere and intense conviction.
   

I have always liked this word, earnest, it is easy on the lips and recently keeps popping up in my mind. You don’t hear it much anymore, the word earnest, maybe it’s an old word…a little dated. I find it hard to describe yet when I meet someone who is earnest I just know it…I can feel it deep inside, deep down in my belly. There is a childlike innocence, a curiosity and a lack of social appropriateness that is so refreshing.

As I was packing my car for my weekly trip to the Bay Area, our neighbor’s daughter pulls up. She is young and enthusiastic, always says hi when I am outside. It is not an obligatory salutation, it feels like an eagerness to connect but not in a weird way. We chat for a few minutes and when we both return to what we were doing I feel seen. I don’t know her very well but I would say she is earnest.

Almost every week I travel for work to the Bay Area and often I stay at the Hilton in Burlingame. My reward points are rather convenient since I don’t live there anymore, yet a few beloved clients that I work with do. Sometimes I stay with friends, not wanting to overstay my welcome once in a while I book a hotel. Many times this suits the self preservation instinct in me that needs to be alone after a long day of client meetings. Hunkering down, me and my down comforter…alone, recharging. Today would be one of those days.

Arriving at the Hilton, I ordered my takeout bowl of clam chowder…which is pretty scrumptious by the way.

While waiting for my hot meal to arrive I am entranced by the multiple screens depicting long and lanky models parading the latest in fashion. Beautiful flowing gowns and crisp resort wear. The legs of the models are a mile long and I have to admit that makes me a bit jealous. Continuing to watch as the alluring models float down the runway I begin to notice that there is not a smile on the face of any of them, not one. It is almost an intentional expression of boredom, an “I don’t care”, an “I am too cool to care” expression, a ho-hum attitude. Mesmerized by these exquisite looking women and men in amazing clothes walking the runway without feeling I start to sense a sadness in my belly. Sad for the pretending, sad for the not caring. I don’t know about you but I might have felt a bit happy while wearing a $100,000+ outfit…if only for a moment or two.

What is this blandness? Is it for the drama? The theatrics? The show?

Tommy Hilfiger models aside, this has been going on in the fashion world for quite a while, the bland look…staring off into space and not engaging. Long ago, when in the fashion world and working for Michael Casey, Michael had been invited to take part in a fashion show in New York, we were beyond excited. This was the moment, the moment of discovery! As the day arrived I watched Michael’s, as well as other designer’s, elegant gowns featured on the runway and I recognized this same look on a jaded audience and on the faces of the fashion press. The same ho hum, the same “I’ve seen it all and I don’t care”. The give me something grand look, give me something big attitude, something I haven’t seen before. I remember being angry at those in attendance at the fashion show, screaming in my mind “how can you be so rude and so full of yourselves?”. I felt protective of the designers who had worked so hard and had presented such beautiful artistry….unappreciated by their audience. In retrospect it reminded me a bit of the scene in “The Hunger Games” of the opulently dressed spectators watching the unwilling participants kill each other just to entertain the crowd.

Today as I look at the screens watching the models wearing some of the most beautifully crafted garments in the world yet expressionless I want to shout “wake-up”, “what is wrong with you?”, “why do you have to pretend to be so cool?”. Sadly I see this in my everyday life, a nonchalant attitude that walls up the vulnerability, the relatability packaged up neatly and tucked away in an impenetrable chamber. What happened to the caring, I for you and you for me, the sense of belonging to each other?. I myself am not immune and display this nonchalant attitude more often than I like…mostly as a protective agent from hurt, like a tortoise drawing its head into its shell. Armor up baby so nothing can hurt me, so nothing can penetrate my shell!

When I encounter the earnest ones I feel the opposite of hiding in my protective cover. The open curiosity of the earnest makes my heart expand, the lack of judgement releases my heart from its walled chamber. To some being earnest may seem naive but I cannot refute that meeting an earnest individual draws me in, makes me feel seen and heard, like I belong…even if only for a moment and that is enough for me.

Recently a fellow Substacker, if you will, who I had subscribed to asked me what I was going to write about. Now there’s a question. Wasn’t I just going to write what I think about, my perspective…you know. Yet it took a minute to articulate what I actually will share with you on this platform, what is my focus?

Before joining Substack my writings were posted to my Interior Design website. This platform felt restricting as I thought my writings had to be about Interior Design, that is what I do after all, and maybe that is why my subscriber’s subscribed. To be honest it was limiting for me and have never loved writing about how to apply Interior Design principles, DIY or such. Sometimes it is hard to articulate what I do and why I think something should be just so, why that vase needs to move 1/8 of an inch to the left, in my mind it just does. Rather than write about how it is done I love to write about the stories, the interactions, the discoveries, the inspiration, the collaboration…that for me is where the magic lives.

Throughout my life I have not only been drawn to creativity, beauty, fashion and interior design but also inwards, towards self-awareness, growth, and transformation…drawn to the soul of life.

Overtime I have read many, and I mean many, books about the inner workings of the mind and you would think I would be an expert by now…some of my friends have had a chuckle or two observing my library of “self help books”. All collected in earnest and read to understand what makes people tick, what makes me tick. Along the way my hope was to glean some insight into why I feel misunderstood so much of the time….hence the overload of “self-help” books in my library.

Early on in this internal exploration I journaled about my thoughts and feelings in a somewhat clinical way, jotting them down as they came along. When the thoughts became stories this is where the magic began. Weaving the inner and outer observations, adding in the inspirations, observing beauty in the mundane and tying it to a life story. Seeing things in a different light, trying to notice and think out of the box.

Long ago my first husband would often tell me I was a good writer. Maybe at the time I couldn’t accept that compliment, I feel boastful even saying that I am. Whether I am or not, for me, it is my life’s blood to write, to externalize my thoughts, to express my feelings. Hopefully by putting them out in the world they will resonate with you; someone who might need to hear my struggles, my pain, my joys, the stories and will relate to them, to feel a solidarity with another who understands that life is not easy, especially for a person who often feels discounted for even having feelings. Someone who all their life was told, in not so many words, they are too sensitive.

This is why I write and why I post to Substack. I would really love it if you joined me for the ride!

For the MAGIC!

When I see a softly painted sky at sunset, the crashing waves on the shore I am filled with awe…these are no small things. This is the world of biology and physics behind the scenes making it happen. Yet our intersection with these incredible forces of nature are small and momentary. I try to capture them with my camera, like holding a little puppy for the first time wanting them to stay just like that, forever. Viewing the images later evokes the memory yet not the internal awestruck emotion felt deep inside as when encountering the real thing.

When my son was young we used to tell him he could do anything, that the world was his oyster, so to speak. It was the era of parenthood where collectively we thought that kids needed to have their self esteem boosted, that it is all about possibilities and no one or no thought should hold you back. Rather than think small we said think big. It didn’t matter whether you had talent or not… you can do it! There are actually some pretty funny Saturday Night Live skits making fun, as they will, of our generational style of parenting. At one point years later my son asked me “Is it okay if I don’t do something great?”. The pressure we put on our kids and ourselves to do something big, to be seen, to be grand, to be noticed by the world…it can be too much. It can also keep us from noticing the small beauty in ourselves, in others and in the world.

Recently working with a beloved client she asked me to push her out of her gravitational pull towards beige. Back at the office, unpacking the tile we had gleaned from the showrooms, my assistant commented about the lack of color. I realized at that moment that beige was not as much a safe move for my client but it is the materiality that catches her eye. The way the stone is formed, the edges that are not so perfect, the iridescent flecks peaking through the natural material. These to me are small moments of beauty that we encounter everyday but may not notice them for lack of boldness, jarring color, or over the top presentation.

For my client and I it was about enjoying the craftsmanship, the thoughtful way in which something is made. I have always been attracted to these moments of appreciating the investment of time and painful creativity. Whether my client and I keep to the beige I don’t know. What I do know is that as she walks through her home and lives her life, she will have small moments of repose, little occasions when she sees the tile in the corner of her eye and the rest of the world disappears as she enjoys the beauty of what is in front of her. It is the allure of what has been newly created from clay or wood, and the stunning beauty that has been forming for thousands of years just so we can enjoy it today.

As I go through this life of so much distraction, chaos and strife, of living big I will bid myself to stop and see, to take note of the friendly smile, the smallest gesture that brings so much life, beauty, and joy. Will you join me in my journey?